


Warm

by keepfabandgayon



Series: Temperature [1]
Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Gen, M/M, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 08:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keepfabandgayon/pseuds/keepfabandgayon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>What was he supposed to believe was better about being a prisoner here than being in the ruins of NERV?</i>
</p><p> </p><p>After Fourth Impact, there are many unanswered questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still kind of trying to make sense of the Rebuild!verse. I say that as if I've even made sense of the original show. Hahaha. Nope. I have more questions than I do answers, and I end up getting lots of headcanons and very little understanding of what the hell has actually occurred. My only consolation is that I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of the characters are in the same boat as me in that respect. Or, you know, the same giant disturbingly biological airship. 
> 
> In any case, here are a lot of my questions and a few of my attempts at answers, and a bit of what I hope and/or expect to see in 4.0, though there is a 99.9% chance I'm wrong about everything, of course.

Small room, white walls, locked from the outside. No door handle inside. 

Tiny bed. Meals delivered under the door. Bathroom breaks every four hours. Showers every other day, no more than ten minutes. 

What was he supposed to believe was better about being a prisoner here than being in the ruins of NERV? 

As if that wasn’t enough, they put another collar on him. Because, really, if anything less traumatic had just happened, it wouldn’t be nearly enough to just lock him in a room. But as it was, Shinji had no desire to escape, or even to try. 

He didn’t speak. He only ate because they forced him to when he didn’t. He lay awake all night almost every night and only slept when he blacked out from exhaustion. And through all that he wondered what might have happened had he listened to Kaworu at that last moment. 

He could have fixed everything, maybe. Now, though? Not a chance. 

“Why are you keeping me alive.” Shinji’s voice was hoarse, after months of silence, and so lacking in emotion that it didn’t even sound like a question. 

The soldier -- that’s what they were, really, all soldiers -- didn’t respond. But the next time Shinji got let out of his room, it was Misato who did the honours. 

“Why are you keeping me alive?”

“We need you.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see.” Of course she wouldn’t tell him. Why would she trust him? 

Shinji knew now that the choker wouldn’t be used to kill him (though he wasn’t sure he’d have minded much if it had), but he had no doubts there was all manner of other horrible things they could do to him with it. Not that he planned to give them a reason to do so. What was the point? And where would he go if he tried to escape? 

The next time he slept, he woke up to find his old, battered SDAT player next to his head. He picked it up, closed his fingers around it, and moved into position to hurl it across the room. But instead, he loosened his fingers and let it drop to the thin mattress below him. 

He hadn’t cried since Asuka dragged him out of Unit 13’s entry plug, but he saw a drop land on the cracked plastic front and suddenly he couldn’t control himself. He sobbed, he screamed, he clawed at the sheets around him, and when he started to dig his nails into his arms two soldiers burst into the room and restrained him. He kicked at their legs and tried to pull his arms free, but they held him fast. 

_We need you_ , she’d said. But did anyone really _want_ him? What did it say about Shinji that the only person who ever really seemed to want him around was an Angel pretending to be human? 

He’d known, of course. Shinji figured it out early on, after wondering enough times why it was that Kaworu called humans “Lilim” and spoke about them as if he was not one himself. 

What did it say about Shinji that he didn’t care? 

There were so many unanswered questions about Kaworu. Why did he care about Shinji at all? Why did he act as though they’d known each other all their lives? How did he _truly know_ Shinji that well? And why would an Angel be so kind, especially to Shinji? But then, there were unanswered questions about everyone, and Kaworu wasn’t the only person Shinji had to mourn. 

“Do you have a piano?” 

Shinji wasn’t sure why he’d asked it; the question just escaped him as soon as he thought of it. The soldier glanced at him, but didn’t stop walking. 

Misato came by again, but she surprised Shinji. 

“I don’t get to go to the bathroom again for another three hours.” He’d taken to counting the minutes when he felt too overwhelmed by the rest of his thoughts, which was often. Of all the things Shinji had failed at, at least he could always focus his mind when he wanted to. It was a talent he didn’t know not everyone had. 

“Come on.” 

There was, in fact, a piano aboard Wunder. It was a small electric one, not capable of the clarity and energy of the grand he’d played with Kaworu. But it was there. Misato stood by the door, silent, and waited. 

The room was tiny, and otherwise empty. Shinji didn’t expect anything to sound good in here, even if he could play well. But still, he sat on the bench (too high, like the first time he’d played with Kaworu) and ran his fingers over the keys. 

It’d been months since he’d last played. What were the chords? What notes sounded good when played in a sequence? Which ones didn’t? _Oh, to hell with it--_

Shinji closed his eyes and let his fingers play wherever they fell. It sounded horrible; discordant, loud, probably so disgraceful to music as a whole that every composer who ever lived rolled over in their graves. But still, he played. He played until those three hours had passed, and longer, and until Misato came over and pulled the plug. 

“It’s time to go.”

Despite that childish display, Misato continued to show up at odd hours to take Shinji to the room with the piano. He wondered where it came from, if it belonged to someone, but didn’t dwell on it. No-one would give him an answer if he asked, would they? 

He tried to recreate the piece he and Kaworu had written together, but he didn’t know Kaworu’s part, and his half didn’t sound like anything on its own. They’d put it together in such a way that it couldn’t be separated; it was one melody, played by four hands, and it was next to nothing without Kaworu’s embellishments and encouragement. With just Shinji’s sad, plonking low notes, it sounded empty. 

It sounded like Shinji felt. 

Shinji wondered if it would have been easier to mourn for Kaworu if it hadn’t been his own fault. Probably not, he decided; he’d never been particularly good with grief. 

He passed Rei once on his way to the piano. She was being followed by a soldier as well. She glanced at Shinji, and Misato put an arm out to stop the soldier. 

“Let her come with me.”

Rei sat on the bench next to Shinji, watching his hands without moving for hours. 

“This is only half of a song,” she said, as if she knew it for certain, though Shinji was sure she’d never heard him play it with Kaworu. 

She placed her fingers on the keys and started to play a few notes. Shinji immediately stopped. 

“You want to play alone.” She stood, and joined Misato by the door. 

Shinji wasn’t sure what bothered him more; that Rei had tried to play Kaworu’s part, or that the notes she’d played had been the right ones. He didn’t know which notes to play, but he could recognise them when he heard them. 

He didn’t call Rei back. As much as he wanted to hear the whole song again, he didn’t want to hear anyone but Kaworu play the other half. It was _their song_ , so wasn’t it right to want it to stay special between them? 

From then on, Rei joined his music practice, always standing by the door next to Misato. Never speaking, never judging. Just Rei. 

Eventually Shinji began to wonder what Asuka was doing. Was she still piloting Eva? Was Mari still making fun of her? Was she okay? Had she somehow become a prisoner too, like himself and Rei? 

If she was alive, and if she was around, then she was avoiding him. And he was fine with that. He didn’t need anyone else pretending they personally cared whether he lived or died. 

He didn’t understand what Misato needed him for. He had no Eva to pilot. All he did was get led around the airship like the prisoner he’d become. Even the piano started to feel like a personal hell, replaying the same sad half of a song over and over, like a never-ending dirge. 

Rei sat down next to him again, weeks later. “That boy. What happened to him?”

“It’s not like you to ask questions out of the blue. Who wants to know?”

Rei glanced at Misato. 

“Since when do you take orders from anyone but my dad?” He was being rude. He didn’t care. 

“I… also want to know.”

“Why?”

“He seemed kind. He made you smile. You don’t smile anymore.”

“He’s dead.”

Rei showed no reaction. 

“It’s my fault. Not that anyone needs more blame to put on me.” 

“You shouldn’t blame yourself. You did what you thought was right. You followed orders.”

“Yes, and now Kaworu is dead. If I don’t follow orders, people die. If I follow orders, people die. I finally found someone who cared about me, and then I killed him.”

“And you, did you... care about him?”

“Yes. Even if he was an Angel.” Shinji drew his feet up onto the bench and hugged his knees. “He was nice to me. He seemed to really want to be around me. No-one ever treats me like that. Everyone always wants something from me. He just wanted me, and I loved that.”

“Loved?”

“Yeah. Don’t you know what that means?”

“It’s mentioned in a lot of books. I read some of the ones you left for me, after you stopped visiting, and so many of them talked about it. I don’t understand it.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“It seems to bring temporary happiness, and then when it goes away it leaves extreme pain behind. It becomes an excuse for mistreatment, and causes people to act in ways they otherwise would not. Why would someone want to experience that?”

Shinji shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess people think the risk is worth it, if they get to be happy at first. That’s what I thought. And I still agree.”

“So you loved him?”

“I think so. And I think he loved me too.” Even though he was an Angel. Even though he kept secrets. Even though Shinji had barely scratched the surface of all that Kaworu was. Somehow, he knew that Kaworu loved him. 

“Then you must be in pain.” Rei put an arm around him, and Shinji flinched, not used to such gentle physical contact, after months of rough handling by soldiers when he misbehaved. “Is this not what people usually do when others are hurt?”

Shinji hesitantly leaned into her side and closed his eyes. For a moment, he pictured himself in his mother’s embrace. He wondered if he would tell her things like this, if she were alive. He entertained the idea of a life in which there were no Angels, no Eva, no Lilith; a life in which Kaworu was human, and alive, and by his side; a life in which his mother never died and his father cared. Would Yui have liked Kaworu? 

“Yes. It helps.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I think because it’s warm.”


End file.
